This invention concerns retrofitting of electronically controlled, multi-product, multi-hose fuel pump stations, such as the gasoline xe2x80x9cpumpsxe2x80x9d commonly used by consumers.
From an engineering standpoint, commercially popular, electronically controlled, multi-product, multi-hose fuel pump stations are just multiple independent single-product systems within a common housing. For example, in a very common configuration, multiple grades of gasoline are dispensed on each of the two sides of a pump station. There are as many hose/handle combinations on each side of the pump station as there gare grades of gasoline available on each side. There are actually six relatively independent gasoline delivery systems housed within the single pump station. There are a variety of reasons to retrofit multi-product, multi-hose gasoline pump stations to single-hose pump stations capable of dispensing the same number and types of gasoline products. Reducing the number of hoses, nozzles, and other parts provides economic benefits (such as reduction in the overall cost of purchase of refurbished pumps and reduction in maintenance costs); environmental benefits (such as reduction in the number of potential liquid and vapor leakage points, and the ability to recycle older equipment to more modern environmental standards); operational improvements (such as reduction in confusion by simplification of product selection at the pump station); and so on.
The invention is a method and system for retrofitting an electronically controlled, multi-product, multi-hose gasoline pump station into an electronically controlled multi-product, single-hose gasoline pump station. The invention can be installed on an existing electronically controlled, multi-product, multi-hose gasoline pump station in as little as two hours. Use of the invention provides significant cost savings compared to the cost of a new single-hose pump station.